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Hospital Psych Ward Suicides Spur Protocol Review

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By RAY REYES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 11, 2008

TAMPA - Officials at Tampa General Hospital are reviewing safety protocols and procedures after two psychiatric patients committed suicide in July, a hospital spokesman said.

"While we are confident in our safety protocols and procedures, we are reviewing them to determine if there are other steps or policies that can be implemented that go beyond the existing standards to better detect, prevent or deter these types of events in the future," spokesman John Dunn says in a written statement released Monday.

According to a Tampa police report, a 44-year-old Tampa woman hanged herself July 21 with a bedsheet on a closet door between 15-minute security checks. Hospital staff performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and the woman was listed in critical condition before she died later that day. She had been admitted to the hospital's 22-bed psychiatric ward several times, the police reports states.

At 4:55 p.m. July 23, a 28-year-old Tampa man hanged himself in the same manner. An employee found the man, who was revived but later died. The man was admitted June 21 into the psychiatric ward under the state's Baker Act, later died, according to a police report.

Officials have conducted a formal review of the deaths, which were not related. The suicides were reported to state's Agency for Health Care Administration and federal health care agencies, Dunn said.

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